


The Truth That Is Given Us

by Jedi Buttercup (jedibuttercup)



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, White Collar
Genre: Crossover, Crossover Pairing, First Meetings, Gen, Gift Fic, Museums, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-03
Updated: 2013-11-30
Packaged: 2017-11-11 07:43:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/476207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedibuttercup/pseuds/Jedi%20Buttercup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The young woman Neal was approaching checked off several boxes on the boring list without even opening her mouth: 'blonde from a bottle', 'dress from a knockoff boutique', 'California tan', and 'can't possibly run in those heels'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Truth That Is Given Us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xgirl2222](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=xgirl2222).



> First chapter written for the prompt: "Neal never thought he could truly love anyone other then Kate, after being run over by Buffy Summers (literally), he's about to change his mind." Second chapter written for the prompt for a sequel. :)
> 
> Title from Picasso: "Art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand." The story of the painting in the first chapter is borrowed from the Elizabeth Lowell novel "[Blue Smoke and Murder](http://www.harpercollins.com/browseinside/index.aspx?isbn13=9780060829865)", and the British artist referenced via quote is Roy Adzak.

The second time Neal Caffrey met Buffy Summers, he was fully in his element, trailing after Peter through yet another of New York's museums with full encouragement to drift around and dip a hand in all of the other guests' business. Someone there had to have seen something, or known something, given that all indications were the thief was either a member of the staff or a patron with special access, and Neal had yet to meet the person capable of seeing past his conman's charm at first meeting.

Well, except perhaps for a few outliers like Agent Peter Burke; but his 'handler' pretty much represented the exception that proved the rule. And at least with Peter, he had the excuse of sharply observational mind honed by FBI training to excuse it. The blonde woman who'd been sitting a bench in front of a single painting in the Western art room for the last half hour in full sight of one of the staff access doors, though? It didn't even occur to Neal to worry as he swept in to question her, apologetic smile on his face and a friendly, inquisitive comment ready on his tongue.

And for once, he wouldn't even have to pretend to be intrigued; the painters of the Great American West were hardly his forte, but he kept abreast of major developments in the overall art scene, and the recent revelation that the gloriously untamed, vivid works formerly attributed to Thomas Dunstan had actually been painted by his lover, one Justine Breck, had sent shock waves through that rather insular world. Especially when the Dunstan family had gone as far as arson and murder to try to keep the secret from coming out, after several additional canvasses had been discovered decades after the woman's death by her granddaughter. The valuation of the works had oscillated dramatically since the revelation, of course-- but the scandal only made the paintings themselves all the more fascinating to Neal.

It was a pity most of the action had happened on the other side of the country. He'd have loved to have been a part of the authentication team on _that_ case. But alas, he was chained to New York for the time being, barring unforeseen alterations to his circumstances; and the cases he _was_ allowed to 'consult' on for the FBI were often very nearly as interesting.

He only wished he could say the same about most of the people he encountered in the course of those investigations. The young woman he was approaching that evening checked off several boxes on the boring list without even opening her mouth: _blonde from a bottle_ , _dress from a knockoff boutique_ , _California tan_ , and _can't possibly run in those heels_. He suppressed a sigh as he extended a hand, approaching at just the right angle to neither block her view nor startle her.

She looked up at that, a matching expression of bland, automatic interest on her face... and then Neal's eyes met hers with a nearly electric shock. They were a knowing, slightly mocking hazel green, as vivid and arresting as the landscape she'd been lost in, and the words momentarily froze in his throat. He _recognized_ the woman. In absolutely the last context he'd ever expected to see her in.

It only took him a second to get over the surprise and deliver his line as if he'd merely been stricken dumb by her beauty. By the time he did, though, the answering spark was completely gone from her gaze as well, replaced by a Barbie-like glassiness and a smile as put-on as her bubble-gum pink fingernails. But he knew what he'd seen. And he knew _she'd_ recognized him, too. He had to fight not to let the burning curiosity show on his face as he spoke.

"This is a Breck, isn't it? Beautiful work; and an even more intriguing story behind it, don't you think?"

He wasn't sure, for a moment, if she'd bother to reply. His pulse rate had already picked up, like it did on all the most exciting cons, when he had no idea how he was going to get out in one piece with what he'd come for but was nevertheless completely certain that he would. The closest he'd ever come to that feeling around another person before had been during the years of cat and mouse with Peter, or the time he'd spent showing Kate the ropes of his world. Alex and Sara teased at that degree of interest from time to time, but the flame hadn't yet caught with either one. He'd _never_ felt it flare so swiftly before, especially when he didn't even know his newest metaphorical sparring partner's name.

She glanced briefly toward the painting, then back to him, forehead furrowed in an obviously calculated, adorably confused way. "Breck? I don't know what you mean. I thought the artist's name was Dunstan?" she asked, tilting her head to present a three-quarter profile, honey toned skin reflecting the light just _so_. "Mom used to have a little section of Western art reprints in her gallery, and his were always the ones that caught my eye. It's like-- they capture the idea of freedom, you know?"

Her tone was light and airy; but Neal had seen behind the mask, and heard both deliberate misleading _and_ genuine emotion underlying the words. His own automatic smile slipped just a little as he glanced back toward the artwork, trying to tease the two apart. It had been her reaction to the art that had been the truthful part, he decided; there was a power to the vast sweep of earth and sky caught in its oils that snared the eye, and a little something extra to the slight, female form captured in the foreground. She was dwarfed by the majesty of the land around her, but not diminished; he got the sense of an enduring spirit expanding to fit the available space, rather than bowing under its immensity.

"I know what you mean," he said, reflectively. "It was a pity the artist never lived to see her work sold under her own name, but then, some of the best artists never do. Your mother had good taste."

A shrewd look flickered into place for a moment, mostly notable in the narrowing of her eyes, then drifted back into wide-eyed innocence; he'd never have seen it if he hadn't already been on full alert. "Now you've got me curious," she replied, brightly. "What's the story on Dunstan and Breck?"

Neal would have whistled to himself if he'd been alone; _damn_ , she was good. Perfecting a false face that responsive took a lot of effort, and even more practice. Fielding her babbling questions as he spun out the story for her, he would never have guessed that just a week before, she'd been fighting for her life up on the rooftops of the city, _literally_ battling something out of a nightmare. She'd spat orders at Neal, then, with an easy assumption of command that had sat just as effortlessly on her shoulders as the airhead routine did under the bright lights of the museum.

He'd mentally compared her then to an unsheathed blade: all lean lines, every movement slicing through the air in pursuit of her deadly purpose, sharp enough to cut even when she was standing still. She'd eyed his black jeans, sweater, and knit cap when it was all over in a way that perfectly expressed her opinion of his apparent occupation without her ever having to say it aloud.

 _She_ was the one who'd run right over _him_ , though, bounding over the gap between the next building and the one he stood on as if she was on springs, while he'd been idly minding his own business. Of course, he _had_ been taking the opportunity of his tracking anklet having been removed for undercover work to sneak out and catch a glimpse of a particular objet d'art he would prefer the government not know he had an interest in, but how could she have known that? She'd tumbled over him headlong, knocking him flat on the dirty surface, sprawled full length over his body; and for just a moment, he'd seen surprise and pure female appreciation as the strange woman stared into his eyes. Then something in her had perceptibly hardened, and she'd pushed off him, bouncing up to sweep a graceful, spinning kick at a guy who'd charged them out of nowhere.

Neal didn't like violence, but he couldn't lay still and watch a slender young woman, however suspicious her arrival, get slaughtered in front of him. He'd sprung up to join the fray-- then froze as the attacker's forehead wrinkled up like something out of a horror movie, leering at Neal and his companion with golden eyes and fanged teeth. The guy's strength had quickly proven to be as unnatural as his appearance, and he'd lifted Neal off the rooftop by the throat until _she_ swept in and jabbed him in the chest with something sharp and wooden.

If it had stopped there, he'd have been tempted to write the encounter off as a bad dream, or a complex illusion. But the bad guy hadn't been alone. Several minutes of chaos later, Neal had felt like several miles of bad road, but he'd still been alive-- all thanks to his pocket-sized, impossible rescuer.

He had no doubt that the creatures-- he still had trouble thinking of them as _vampires_ \-- would have killed him if she hadn't been there. The question was, _why_ had she been there? And who-- or what-- was _she_? The bad guys had called her Slayer, but she hadn't bothered to introduce herself, by that or any other name. Neal wasn't even certain he'd have recognized her again if it hadn't been for those intense green eyes. She'd been dressed as darkly as he'd been, if more stylishly, golden hair bound up under a navy blue scarf and no flashy jewelry or makeup in evidence.

Had she really recognized Neal, or had he been imagining it? Was she aware that he'd recognized her in return? She had to know. There was no way the mere substitution of one of Byron's suits for his cat burgler's gear had fooled her. Had she seen him enter with Peter? Did she think he was actually FBI, too? Was _she_ some kind of clandestine LEO, maintaining the fiction that they'd never met before as a courtesy?

She smiled sadly when he finished the tale, glancing back at the painting. "Mom would have loved that story," she said softly. "I wish I'd kept one of the prints after she died. But I didn't think of it, and then the gallery was sold to pay the bills, and then that salt dome swallowed the town-- I can't even go look at them anymore. So when I saw this one here, I just...." She shrugged, slight shoulders shifting under her pale silk blouse, looking nearly tragic for a moment: as ethereal and fragile as a spun-crystal bauble.

Or was she even playing a role? How many facets did the woman have? Neal knew, with immediate conviction, that he wouldn't be satisfied until he'd learned the answer to that question-- no matter how long it took.

And she'd just provided him with a clue. Salt dome, California accent... the only town she could be referring to was _Sunnydale_. Current favorite of document forgers everywhere, given that the city's paper records and most of its electronic backups had been destroyed in the collapse. The details about the gallery were a nice touch, though-- particularly if they turned out to be true.

"I completely understand," he said, smile warming with sympathy. "A British artist once said, 'Good art is not what it looks like, but what it does to us.' For you, Breck paintings will always be masterpieces, because they remind you of your lost home."

"Yeah. I think you're right." Something softened in her at that, another crack in the Valley Girl façade. "So what kind of art do _you_ turn to, for comfort?"

He almost-- _almost_ \-- missed the buried barb in the casual question. She _did_ know what he'd been doing on that rooftop. _How_? Had she-- or the vampires-- been chasing the same thing? Did she know there were other works by the same artist in the building?

...Was her presence actually connected to Neal and Peter's case?

Of _course_ that was the moment Peter chose to activate his earbud again, reminding Neal that he was supposed to be asking questions about suspicious movements in the museum, not 'flirting with every pretty face he saw'. If he only knew.

Neal made his excuses, and bowed out-- but made sure to slip a card with his name and number at June's into her hand as he left. And gleaned her name in exchange: _Buffy Summers_. The perfect match for her glamour and sunshine exterior.

Only time would tell if it was any more authentic than Neal's. But he'd seen the glint in her eyes when she'd given it to him. He was very much looking forward to her call.

\---


	2. Let the Games Begin

In the window of time between their second and third meetings, Neal Caffrey carefully avoided doing any obvious research into the deliciously mysterious Buffy Summers. He had a feeling she might be expecting it, and he hated to think that a woman who could shift masks with such ease would find a professional such as himself in any way _predictable_.

Unfortunately, that meant not mentioning her to Peter or Elizabeth. Not yet. He'd given Ms. Summers his current name _and_ his actual phone number, and with that, it would be very easy for her to connect him to his consultant's position at the FBI. If she was as savvy as she'd seemed at first glance, an official inquiry would very swiftly tip her off to his investigation. 

Besides, an official FBI background search probably wouldn't be of much use, anyway. While Neal wouldn't put it past the government to actually have an agency or division dedicated to the supernatural, it would certainly be too classified for _him_ to be told about, and whether they did or didn't, secrecy and disinformation would lead to the same result. Whatever Peter might come up with would be sanitized to an implausible degree, carefully shaped to support the plastic and sunshine facade he'd met in the museum. And while the professional in Neal knew both sides of her had to be equally real... the side he wanted to know more about was the goddess who'd saved his life, not the petite, insubstantial beauty with the taste for poetic Western art.

So where to start? With that initial point of contact: why had she been there to begin with? Neal had been attacked by monsters out of myth, and rescued by a woman whose grace and skill belonged in the pages of a fairy tale. If they hadn't been tracking _him_ \-- and while he couldn't completely rule it out, he didn't _think_ he'd crossed anyone lately who might send goons of any stripe after him, much less actual vampires-- then they had to have been staking out that gallery for a reason. Search backward from that purpose, and who knew what he might find?

He opened his laptop, then pulled up the gallery's webpage, and began searching through its publicly advertised exhibits for items with particularly lurid or fantastic attributions.

He was still at it when Mozzie arrived several hours later, attention drawn-- once again-- to the manuscript that had drawn him there in the first place, prominently displayed under glass in the gallery's main room. Other works of literary art adorned the walls, drawn from the rare book collection of the gallery's owner: hand-painted tarot cards from a bygone era, folding merchant calendars with illustrated lettering, historically significant legal certificates filled out in elegant calligraphy, and early drafts of famous poets' work, to name a few.

Neal was a great admirer of the skill that went into such handcrafted masterpieces, the techniques and attention to detail integral to their creation that had become rarer and rarer with each advance in modern technology. So few people had the time or desire to invest in such crafts any more-- leaving the field wide open for those who knew how to seize opportunity when it presented itself. But Neal loved the art for its own sake as well, and among these works, his favorite was definitely the illustrated notebook displayed in the room's center.

He could forge a duplicate, certainly; he even knew the name of a collector that would snap up the original in a heartbeat. An organization known only as the Council had been dredging the literary black market for decades, first to supplement a private archive in London, and in more recent years to replace it after someone had-- according to rumor-- bombed their first collection to ash. Neal didn't like to think about how much irreplaceable art had been lost to the world that day. But they paid well, and the more fantastical the document, the better. Still... he'd only gone there to look that night, not to take; there was no current bounty on the manuscript worth burning his bridges with the FBI for.

The subject of the notebook suggested a different motive, though, one that made a crazy amount of sense in retrospect. It was filled with inked sketches and elegantly inscribed descriptions of imaginary beings that might best be described as demons. If vampires were real... what other impossibilities were true? Could something in that book be valuable in the right hands... or wrong, as the case may be?

"Earth to Neal," Mozzie interrupted, waving a glass of a fine red vintage under his nose, finally breaking his attention away from the laptop's screen.

"Oh, hey, Moz. Didn't hear you come in." Neal took the wine, noting its distinct bouquet with a certain amount of fond annoyance; Mozzie had found the bottles he'd been hoarding for a rainy day, again. "What's wrong?"

"Shouldn't _I_ be the one asking that question?" his best friend asked pointedly, regarding him over the rim of his glass with a frown. "I've barely heard from you since you scouted that manuscript exhibit a week ago. And what do I find when I finally come to see for myself? You, researching the exhibit, yet again." He gestured with his free hand at the laptop's screen. "What gives?"

Neal pursed his lips, considering, then fortified himself with a long draught of the wine. "Moz... I know this might sound crazy, coming from me, but bear me out, for a minute. What do you know about vampires?"

" _Vampires_?" Mozzie's eyebrows arched incredulously up above the heavy black frame of his glasses-- but there was a flicker of something in his eyes that convinced Neal he'd taken the right tack. "As in garlic and coffins, I vant to drink your blood, Dracula vampires? Pfft." He flapped a hand dismissively.

"Moz," Neal pressed him. "Come on. I'm serious. Imagine for a minute that someone you know, someone whose judgment you trust, actually _saw_ one. Forget garlic and coffins; think yellow eyes and inhuman strength, instead. Where would such a person look to find more information? If they actually exist, _someone_ has to have encountered them before-- and survived to tell about it."

Moz gaped at him, then hurriedly finished off his own glass, throat working nervously. "Someone whose judgment you trust? You can't mean _Agent Burke_. I'd believe the Suit stumbled into a basement full of hallucinogenic spores before I believed he came to you with tales of _vampires_."

"Moz...." Neal sighed.

"No." Moz turned up his nose, gathering steam, even as a fine tremor shook the hand holding his glass. "I may have something of a reputation as a connoisseur of conspiracies, but even I don't believe in a secret underworld populated by bloodthirsty revenants and the young girls tasked by destiny to slay them!"

"Ah, but I never mentioned the girl," Neal raised a finger. "You know something. Spill."

" _The_ girl?" Mozzie froze, eyes widening. "Someone-- and by someone in this case, I'm now inferring _you_ \-- actually met a Slayer? Here? What was she like?"

Slayer? Well that confirmed it; that was what the vampires had called her. The title didn't fit the California blonde in the knockoff designer wear-- but it _did_ fit the woman in the dark, comfortable clothes who'd knocked him flat on a rooftop and then danced her way effortlessly through their attackers. 

"Beautiful," Neal replied, smirking at his friend. "Deadly. And apparently a fan of Breck. I met her on an investigation with Peter, a few days ago, and she's asked to meet me for coffee tomorrow."

"Coffee?" Moz choked, eyes widening further. "You? And a _Slayer_? On a _week day_? Oh, this is bad. Neal, you have to call her back and tell you can't go, this instant!"

"You're overreacting, Moz. She might be the best hand-to-hand fighter I've ever seen, and I'll admit the supernatural aspect threw me a little-- but we're meeting in public. There shouldn't be any danger. I would have thought you'd be all over this!"

"Maybe if I didn't already know more than I ever wanted to," his friend replied, pacing back and forth in agitation. "I never talked to you about this stuff for a reason, Neal. Didn't you ever wonder why I was on my own when you met me? Or why I've always been so convinced my parents worked for the CIA? It's not just the conspiracies-- my people have _always_ been recruited for that sort of work. It comes with what we are. If I hadn't made my own way out into the world-- I probably would have become a tool of the Man myself, whether I wanted to or not. And for what? Every time I run across one of those teenage death machines, I have to defend my right to exist, all over again. Again and again and again-- because their turnover rate is atrocious. They're danger magnets, Neal; putting yourself in the orbit of one is just _asking_ to put your name on the target list of beings more lethal than you can imagine. You've escaped the shadows this long; I'm not about to let you slip into them now."

It was Neal's turn to sit back, astonished at the frantic run of words. Was Mozzie saying-- what _was_ Mozzie saying? Neal froze on that question for a long moment, then shook off the whole 'my people' reference to deal with later.

"What do you mean, teenage death machines? The woman I met wasn't a teenager, Moz."

Mozzie froze in his pacing and turned his head slowly in Neal's direction. "Not a teenager...? Oh _no_. What did she look like?"

"Green eyes, bottle blonde, California accent? About this tall." Neal demonstrated with a gesture, holding a hand up horizontal to his chin.

" _The_ Slayer?" Mozzie whimpered. "You've actually met her? _Buffy Summers_? And lived to _tell about it_?"

"That _was_ the name she gave me," Neal confirmed.

Mozzie tottered over to the chair opposite Neal's, then collapsed into it. "I can see I'm not going to get out of this without explaining _everything_ ," he said, faintly. "Oh, my god. We're so doomed."

"We?" Neal repeated, shaking his head. In grasping after the trail of his mystery woman, it looked like he'd laid his hands on the tail of a tiger; good thing he appreciated a challenge. 

He reached for the wine bottle, then carefully topped off both their glasses and fixed his friend with an intent look. "All right, then. Hit me with it."

* * *

"Buffy, what possessed you to give this man your name, much less ask him on a _date_?" Giles frowned at her as she tied the navy scarf around her throat as a jaunty accent to her sober, professionally styled dress-- and incidentally, a deliberate reminder of a certain encounter on the rooftops of New York. "He's a confidence man, a convicted felon; and he's currently working with the White Collar division of the FBI as a consultant. If he chooses to turn the eyes of that agency upon your activities in the city...."

"He won't," she said, turning away from the mirror with a smile. "Actually, I was thinking about recruiting _him_. That compendium at the gallery? The last thing we need is another Moloch getting loose in the Internet; everything's so much more interconnected than it was back when Willow was scanning the Sunnydale library. If we could get him to forge a copy, then lock up the original...."

"Were you not listening?" Giles threw up his hands. "What's to stop him from reporting your offer, then claiming that the original is itself a forgery and disposing of it for his own unscrupulous purposes?"

"I rescued him from _vampires_ , Giles," she scoffed. "He's not going to turn me over; he might be a criminal, but he's not that kind of guy. And besides, he was already scoping out the book. If we want to get our hands on it before the local Master gets fed up with sending goons and just outright steals it, then I think our best chance is to work with someone like Neal Caffrey."

"And you're _certain_ you're not blinded by the man's attractiveness?" Giles raised a knowing eyebrow at her.

Buffy flushed. Okay, so she might have a bit of a thing for morally grey guys who wore their hearts on their sleeves, particularly when their eyes were so _blue_ and their clothes so well tailored to such an amazing body... but she _had_ learned better than to mistake lust for trust without further evidence. Spike had been an object lesson for her in a lot of ways-- as had Riley, and the Immortal, and even Angel for that matter, not that Giles ever fixated on any of _them_ when he got all lecture-y.

"Aw, Giles; I didn't know you swung that way," she replied, lightly. "I could set _you_ up with him for a date instead, if you like." She batted her eyelashes.

Giles spluttered. "That is _not_ what I... oh, for heaven's sake." He reached up as though to whip his glasses off, forgetting he wore contacts these days, then stared at his hand with a dismayed frown. "I'm simply concerned that you might be treading more dangerous waters than you know."

"Not to worry. I'll make sure Willow and the Slayers on duty know where I am at all times." She took the slim bangle bracelet Willow had enchanted for her out of her purse, then clicked it about her wrist, activating its tracking capabilities. She wasn't a big fan of having her every movement followed, but sometimes, the costs were outweighed by what she gained in return.

She wondered idly if Mr. Caffrey felt the same about his current career; then shook her head and settled the purse strap back on her shoulder. "So. How do I look?"

"Stunning, as always," Giles sighed, then endured a careful, heartfelt hug. "Be careful, my dear."

"The careful-est," she replied lightly, then walked out the door of the Council House to signal a cab.

He was already waiting when she reached the café; she'd expected as much. Slightly more unexpected was the faint sense of demonic essence that cramped at her gut as she walked in: a man in dark glasses, nondescript clothing, and a hat cowered behind a newspaper in a corner behind the nattily dressed con man. A friend of Neal's? But if he was-- then why had Neal been so surprised to see vampires when she'd literally tripped over him scoping out the Travers notebook?

Curiouser and curiouser. She made the executive decision to temporarily ignore the observer, pending evidence that he was an actual threat, then approached Neal's table with a radiant smile.

Neal smiled back without hesitation as he rose to his feet, warm and welcoming and dazzling enough to make her nerves tingle from head to toe... and then his eyes dipped to the scarf, and the smile deepened, taking on shadows and layers enough to drown in.

He _did_ know-- knew _something_ , at least. Buffy could see it in him now, sparking a frisson of danger along her nerves to keep the arousal company.

"Miss Summers," he said courteously, moving to pull out her chair for her.

"Mr. Caffrey," she replied, graciously. "It's good to see you again."

"Likewise," he replied, settling across from her; and of course, that was the moment when she noticed the _navy_ handkerchief square in his suit pocket. "I was thrilled to receive your call."

Giles had been right: these _were_ dangerous waters. But if Buffy had learned anything over her long career as a Slayer, it was that she needed a little spice to keep her going-- despite the risks and painful past experiences-- to keep her from getting ground flat under the weight of her destiny.

So carpe librum, then... and maybe a little carpe diem, while she was at it.

"I have a few more days in the city," she said, opening the conversation, "and it occurred to me that I should pick your brain about other artwork I should see before I go...."


End file.
